A baseline survey of ugandas legal aid service providers
The School of Law at Makerere University established a fully-fledged Public Interest Law Clinic (PILAC) in January 2012, with the purpose of enhancing the practical application of Clinical Legal Education (CLE) to Law students. The project mainly aims at building the capacity and skills of Ugandan Lawyers to enable them initiate and pursue public interest litigation, teach CLE as well as organize and manage the students’ clinics. It also aims at creating an avenue for the provision of legal services to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) which use public interest litigation as one of their strategies, with the ultimate goal of
creating a network of legal aid clinics in Uganda, Africa and the world. The project will also facilitate research on public interest litigation cases in the courts of Uganda, and institute a system of amici curiae (‘friends-of-the-court’) briefs. PILAC is spearheading research with the view to undertaking litigation relevant to the advancement of Public Interest Law for the protection of the vulnerable members of society. While the success of this initiative is conditional on very many factors, HURIPEC believes that before the clinic ventures into more active legal aid provision and strategic impact litigation, it is necessary to understand the current environment and context of legal aid and strategic impact litigation. This involves reviewing the major legal framework on legal aid and strategic impact litigation and most importantly understanding the work of the various key actors in the sector.
For this reason PILAC commissioned a three month baseline survey in January 2012 to map out the key legal aid service providers and the most important actors in the area of strategic impact litigation. It is our hope that the survey will guide PILACs future work and interventions and also help to identify opportunities for collaboration on existing initiatives. The survey is also expected to isolate the key challenges faced in legal aid service provision and strategic impact litigation.